Chicago Man Sentenced in Pennsylvania for COVID-19 Unemployment Fraud

During the COVID-19 outbreak, a man from Chicago was punished in a court in Pennsylvania for filing fake unemployment claims. The judgment was handed down on Monday.

Christian Matthews, 35, is accused of unlawfully obtaining personal information belonging to other individuals and then using that information to file claims for pandemic-related unemployment benefits in some jurisdictions, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. The information was provided by the court.

Also, he used stolen social security numbers to build fictional firms on the internet in order to gain postal addresses for other organizations. He did this by purchasing stolen social security numbers online. In the future, he would make use of these addresses and send reward cards to the relevant individuals.

Mail fraud and aggravated identity theft were the charges that Matthews was found guilty of. Judge William S. Stickman IV of the United States District Court handed down a sentence that included a restitution fine of $20,000 and a jail sentence of 54 months. Additionally, he was required to serve three years on parole.

The following departments have been of assistance to the United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan in this matter, and he would like to express his gratitude to them: United States Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General, United States Department of Homeland Security Investigations, United States Postal Inspection Service, and Findlay Township Police Department are the organizations that are involved in this investigation.